Legion of Orangeblight WIP

Since I last posted here, I've stopped one HORDES army and started a new one.

My Trollblood army that I documented through this blog has been declared finished. While I enjoyed playing them, I felt too many similarities to my primary army, Khador. Not only do both armies excel at bringing axe to mouth, but both tend toward lower DEF scores and higher ARM scores. Feeling that ARM isn't what it used to be in the Mk II meta, I explored my options for a high-DEF army instead. Looking at the choices in front of me, and what armies were already popular at my local store, I ended up with the Legion of Everblight!

This army's draconic land-shark warbeast design aesthetic always appealed to me, as did their reliance on warbeasts more than any other HORDES army.

On the peer pressure of the local players and store owner (thanks, you bastards!), I bought in with the warpack and Abyslonia. Played a few games, then with Templecon 2011 looming I brought out my trusty Khador for tourney practice. With that behind us, my store started up a slow grow league for the influx of new players, but a few of us vets joined in too for a good excuse to paint.

I had to come up with a color scheme, and I decided that since my Khador was camouflaged but still managed to have low DEF, my Legion would be vibrant and be super hard to spot ^^ Thus, the Legion of Orangeblight was born.

The league goes 15 -> 25 -> 35 and possibly 50pts, with a month between each jump. The only rules are 1) Anything in a list must be used in the subsequent larger lists, and 2) Everything must be fully painted and based for the monthly league tournament.

15pts:
Abyslonia, Terror of Everblight
*Angelius
*Scythean
*Shredder

(WIP, the army as of the tournament)

The first tourney was a week ago, and I failed at my painting goals - even with only FOUR models in my 15pt list! The above picture is the state of the army as of that tournament. However, enough others failed at that same goal that our T.O. allowed everyone to play in the tourney anyway. It was a 3 round tournament using a fun and chaotic April Fool's scenario: At the top of the round, both players randomly select a spell on their warlock/warcaster's card and trade it with the opponent.

Round 1: Vs Cryx (Terminous). Thanks to the scenario I got Ravager onto my Scythean, plus his animus, to utterly destroy the enemy's unit of Bloodgorgers in one go. My Angelius then one-shotted Terminus with a P+S16 AP attack! Win.

Round 2: Vs Cryx (pSkarre). He had two units of McThralls, among other things, which really gave me problems with sheer number of attacks. Through the scenario I stole Dark Guidance at the critical moment when my opponent needed it. Before we got too mixed up, however, I overestimated Abby's defense and underestimated pSkarre's charge range! Loss.

Round 3: Vs Cryx - notice a theme here?! (eDenny). I somehow weathered a feat turn where a Slayer, two bonechickens, a Skarlock, and the Withershadow Combine were all thrown at my army. Afterwards, Abby feated to heal everyone up, forced for P+S15, and took out the Slayer single-handedly, freeing up the Angelius from combat who then charged and one-shotted eDenny (take that DEF16!). Would have done it a turn earlier, but the eDenny player timed her incorporeal perfectly. Win.

I went 2-1 for the day, coming in 3rd place.

After that, I got to work painting. The 15pt list currently only needs highlights and basing:


And as a special sneak preview, here's a pile of Orangeblight minis still to paint. Are they part of the 25pt list? Well, some of them are. You'll have to wait and see at next month's tournament!


Until next time.

I'm alive...

I've decided it's time to resurrect this blog and start keeping track of the things I'm doing. Mostly because I've resurrected my desire to paint. The lack of updates have not been without good reason. A week after my last post, when I finished my Bronzeback, I got dumped by the girl I was seeing at the time. The amount of time I had been devoting to painting may have played a roll in that, but that's besides the point. A week after that, my cousin was killed in a car accident. I am extremely close with all of my cousins, and he was like a little brother to me, so I was incredibly distraught. Since that day in June, I hadn't put brush to paint, or paint to model. I just didn't have the desire.

But, finally, that flame has reawoken. And boy howdy, reawoken with a fervor I don't know if I've ever truly had before. You might ask why. Well, I'll tell you why.

Menoth.

That's right, I'm finally painting all of my Menoth stuff. And I've set a (probably unrealistic) goal of fielding a fully painted force for Templecon, a little less than 6 weeks away. And not just one fully painted list. Four fully painted lists.

How in the hell am I going to accomplish this?

Well, I have a few factors working on my side. For one thing, I'm not starting from scratch. Yes, I've never finished any of my Menoth models before starting this undertaking, but I have painted them. That means I have a lot of models that are basecoated already. A quick wash and some highlighting, along with basing the model, and they're good to go. I've already done this with three of my Knights Exemplar, and they went from "meh" to "stunning" in about 30 minutes of painting.

Another thing working in my favor is army overlap. I've got a lot of models that will be in all four of my lists, or at least three of them, and thus they are all getting preferential treatment to make sure they're ready for play. Already some of those models have been finished. I'll post some pics in subsequent posts.

And lastly, I paint pretty fast. Not lightning fast or anything, but I can generally finish a small based model in an hour, a medium based model in two hours, and a large based model in three. That's from primed to sealed. I'm not trying to win any Golden Daemon painting competitions, but I think from my previous posts it's easy to see that my tabletop quality is pretty good.

I'm going to need a lot of encouragement in this process, though. So, I'm hoping for a lot of feedback to keep me motivated! I'll start posting my army lists in the next couple of posts as well, which should help me prioritize my painting a little more.

Templecon or bust, baby.

The Shattered Kriel vs The Sapphire Guard: 35pt battle

Battle Report #4: The Shattered Kriel of Madrot Marsh (me, StarmanTTLB) vs The Sapphire Guard (GeminiX6)

I managed to get in a 35pt game against GeminiX6's pMakeda-led Skorne on Monday. See his posts for his exact army list. We used the league units for practice:

Round 1, Turn 1 (Pic): Trolls charge headlong at the Skorne. Champions & Fell Caller on one flank, Fennblades & Chronicler on the other, and Grim, battlegroup, and Krielstone in the center.

Round 1, Turn 2 (Pic): Skorne move, sending their Titans at the Champion flank and Praetorians at the Fennblade flank. Makeda pops her feat fearing for her Praetorians' lives, and Defender's Wards them as well.

Round 2, Turn 1 (Pic): Fennblades charge the Cyclops by the Praetorians, doing respectable damage, and run in to engage as many Praetorians as possible, deciding not to make a single attack roll against them for fear of the feat. Chronicler tells the Hero's Tragedy tale on them for next turn. Champions try to destroy the Bronzeback, but even with Grim Baiting the Line, two of the three Champs fall just short (we're talking millimeters here!). The successful Champ barely damages the Bronzeback.

Round 2, Turn 2 (Pic): Praetorians, Beast Slavers, and Cyclops almost wipe out the Fennblades, but are knocked down all over as a result. Bronzeback rocks the Champions unit but thanks to a couple of rolls totalling 2, only takes out two of the three. The Gladiator fails his charge due to the placement of a single Praetorian, stopping him a few inches out from the Pyre Troll.

Round 3, Turn 1 (Pic): The Pyre kills the two Praetorians engaging itself, the Impaler, and Grim. Grim moves up, feats, Mark for Death's the Praetorians, and Snare Gun's the Bronzeback. The Mauler tramples through the now DEF10/KD'd unit (he can see the Standard Bearer in the back thanks to Marked for Death), and slaughters a mess of 'em. The Krielstone sprays to take out a few more, and a Beast Slaver. The Fennblade forgets to make his Vengeance attack, but kills the KD'd Cyclops on his regular attack. The Impaler fails his Crit Smite attempt on the Gladiator but still does a couple of damage points. The last Champion does an impressively TINY amount of damage to the KD'd Bronzeback in front of him (P+S11 Weaponmasters still want to charge against ARM19+ models, it seems).

Round 3, Turn 2 (Pic): The Bronzeback frenzies and inflicts 7 of 8 damage on the last Champion, failing to kill it. The Beast Slavers and remaining Praetorians surround the Mauler and plink him, adding 4 Fury to put him at his max of 5 and doing some minimal damage - and spawning a Whelp next to him. The rest of the army pulls back to try and weather the coming storm - the Trolls still had to break through three beasts and a few infantry to get to Makeda.

Round 4, Turn 1 (Pic): The Mauler eats his Whelp to remove all 5 Fury. The Krielstone moves up, sprays, and kills some mooks, also putting healthy damage on Makeda (boosting sprays FTW!). Grim and the Impaler sling some damage her way, using the rest of her transfers. The Mauler risks one free strike (which misses thanks to a second Whelp's Annoyance rule), and then kills Makeda on his first (successful) attack.

This was my first win in four games with Grim, so I'm psyched. Gemini and I agree that he had some poor placement for the Beast Slavers, basically keeping them too far from the Titan pack which really needed their help. The Fennblades did their job of messing with the enemy's offensive. The Champions did surprisingly little damage, but that's due mainly to me being unable to estimate charge distances well.

I feel that I managed to use Grim properly this time, slinging around Marked for Death and Snare Gun shots like whoa to basically get my army where it needed to be, and to hit what they needed to hit.

The MVP of the game is definitely Noral Stonemapper & Scribes. Turn 1 he leeched 5 Fury from a riled Mauler, and then basically moved up and Aura'd for a couple of turns. Once combat was joined, I started using his POW12 Crit KD spray to wonderful effect. Having a boostable spray attack combined with a Fury management unit is absolutely priceless. That ability to leech Fury mid-turn, though, I'd gladly give up the spray to make that leeching a permanent Krielstone ability.

The Sapphire Guard - Week Five a.k.a. OH MY GOD I'M DONE!

Judgement Day, Armaggedon, Ragnarok... whatever you want to call it, it has come! Finally done with the Gamer's Journal and I am proud to report that I successfully painted up my full 35 point list. The finished product is as follows:


The Sapphire Guard [1][2][3][4]
Archdomina Makeda (*5pts)
* Cyclopse Savage (5pts)
* Cyclopse Shaman (5pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts) [1][2][3][4]
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard (2pts)
Extoler Soulward (2pts)

The newest addition to the squad is the Bronzeback, who I am affectionately calling King Kamehameha.


I'm extremely proud of him. He was assembled, based, primed, and painted over the course of two days. He's definitely the most extensive model and base I've ever constructed, and I love everything about him. The paint job, the base, the pose, absolutely everything!

Battle Rep:

I found myself across the table from Starman's Trollblood army for the first time since our 15pt lists (we were painting so much we had no time to play during the weeks leading up!) and suffice to say I lost. I won't go into it, but I was testing out the Paingiver Beast Slavers (Blasted Heath special unit) and I didn't deploy them well, plus I moved some models poorly after getting in sidesteps with them, and King K rolled for crap on his first couple of attacks (always happens right after you paint a model, y'know?). The list still played relatively well, but it's trickier without Condition for certain. I may switch it up during the league and drop the Savage from the list just because I don't feel like I have the fury to run him with all of this stuff.

Growth:

More than just this list, I'm looking at growing this army. Things I own that will be getting painted soon to allow some options:

* Xerxis
* Basilisk Krea
* Ancestral Guardian
* 2 more Paingivers (for max unit)
* Min Ferox unit
* Min Venators unit
* 1 (possibly 2) Gladiators
* up to 4 Savages (this depends on what I can salvage from the pile I got)

Stuff I don't own, but plan to:

* 2 Razorworms
* Zaal
* Hexeris
* 2nd Paingiver unit
* 2 Ancestral Guardians (to max the FA)

That's at least what I want right now, Menoth only knows what else I'll get.

Thoughts on The Gamer's Journal:

Holy balls this has been fantastic motivation! I don't even have to paint right now, and yet when I came home it was my first instinct and I really wanted to go down and get some models primed and ready to go. I didn't end up doing that, but it was definitely on my mind. I love that this has gotten me a beautiful force to play with, along with the urge to paint! Hopefully I can keep this going and get my Protectorate stuff finished up, finally!

Much thanks to Starman for keeping me motivated, the other Gamer's Journal players for doing the same and providing me with a lot of great feedback, and Naahz for coming up with this idea in the first place! Good luck to everyone else in the future!

The Shattered Kriel of Madrot Marsh - Week 5 Final Report

Here we are at the end of Gamer’s Journal #1, and I’m happy to report that I met the final deadline: My 35pt Grim Angus-led Trollblood force is 100% painted and ready to go!

Without further ado, meet the Shattered Kriel of Madrot Marsh:

(click for larger)

More group shots: group 2, zoom 1, zoom 2, zoom 3.

The final 35pt list is as follows (entries in green are new additions for this week):

Grim Angus
* Irontooth (Dire Troll Mauler)
* Jurt (Troll Impaler)
* Swampfire (Pyre Troll)
(6) Trollkin Fennblades
(3) Trollkin Champions [pic 1 | pic 2 ]
Krielstone Bearer & (3) Scribes & Elder Stone Scribe [ pic 1 | pic 2 ]
Fell Caller [ pic 1 | pic 2 ]
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Troll Whelps

Modeling & Painting:

Whew, glad this thing is over! I’m not a fast painter by nature, so I was dealing with tight deadlines for all five weeks of this Journal. I managed to meet every deadline along the way, but it definitely ate up all of my free time!

I challenged myself with some minor greenstuff detailing and fairly epic (for me) bases on this army, and intend to stick to this theme as I expand this force out into the wilderness of 50pts and beyond. For anyone looking at this final update, I used this tutorial from the Terrainthralls and Envirotex Lite to make the swamp bases for my army.

I still love the color scheme after painting it for five weeks without pause. The yellows aren’t quite as eye-catching as I’d hoped for, probably due to the way I’ve been “rusting” my silvers into a shiny brown. Regardless, the army looks great on the tabletop. This is the brightest army I’ve done so far, so it’s (to me) surprisingly eye-catching from across the store.

Close-ups on the new additions for this week. First, the Fell Caller:


(3) Champions:


Elder Stone Scribe (Krielstone unit UA):


Play, List-Building, and Growth Beyond 35pts:

I didn’t have a chance to play this past week, so I can’t report on how the 35pt list works. It was solid up through 25pts, however, and I only added pure awesome (whee Champs!) in this update, so I don’t expect any unpleasant surprises when I hit the table with these guys.

My next step(s) with the Shattered Kriel will be to paint up (4) Fennblades, (2) Champions, and (2) Stone Scribes. This will max out the existing units I’ve got, definitely an important step. I have a few models to choose for where to expand after that, although I expect Alten Ashley, the Champion Hero, and a Troll Axer will be the top of that list. I also have a pile of warlocks to choose from, and no real idea where to begin. Grissel and pMadrak will likely come first as they both work well enough with the list I’ve got together now.

Overall Thoughts/Gamer’s Journal Summary:

I’m very pleased with my participation in Gamer’s Journal #1. I’ve owned my Trollbloods since the Hordes release, but never played more than 3-4 games with them in that time. This challenge provided me with the motivation to paint up some of that bare metal and to get in actual gameplay experience with them. I had intended to sell/trade off much of my excess Trollbloods after the challenge (using the Journal to build a working list and discarding the rest), but now my interest in the blueskins (greyskins?) has been rekindled. I was looking at my unpainted stuff this morning, and couldn’t firmly decide what, if anything, I wanted to sell off! I mean, Water Buffaloes, right? :D

I think the GJ was a great motivator for many of us, and having so many other great folks modeling and painting alongside me is definitely what forced me to stick to my brush. I'd definitely commit to such a challenge again, although not for a little while yet ^^

Thanks to all of my fellow participants, Naahz for organizing the event, and the forumgoers who stopped by to give us praise and critiques!

Now, what should I do with all of my free time now that the GJ is done?!

To Battle!

Here's a blurry shot of what I've got done. Only 2 models left! One of them is in pieces in the background there. The other is the UA leader.

The Shattered Kriel - Week 5 Snapshot

Been chipping away at the Week 5 additions, but the going has been slower than I want. I blame getting a bit burned out with painting, but I'm in this one for the long haul!

I'm adding minimum Champions, the Krielstone UA, and a Fell Caller for my 35pt jump. This adds in 8 weaponmaster attacks, a spray, and two utility models, which will hopefully fix the problem I've noticed with the 25pt list, in that it can't put out melee damage like I want it to. I'm probably spoiled by Khador (for'ex, played a game this weekend with a charging Behemoth under pButcher's feat, so yea).

Everything is still in the process of being basecoated right now